I think your Smash post are very over reaching. I know you don’t know much about the series, but I think your trying to place it in the same bucket with the other Nintendo games when it is not the case. You say “All the developers want to make the games they want.” I don’t disagree with that, but you haven’t really shown how Sakurai is doing that. Even the Smash Bros post talk more about Mario and Zelda than Smash. Your assuming that because Melee is the base (for some reason or another) that Sakurai not making Melee is him making games for himself. There is little basis for this. I feel like your taking the stance since the major developers at Nintendo are doing this practice, that every one is. It also ignoring that Sakurai is actually an independent and has made his games with Nintendo using outside staff and companies. And then there is this:
“This is a nice try. But do you really think Smash Brothers Melee is a hardcore game? Melee was really when Smash Brothers became popular and, obviously, Brawl’s sales were catapulted to Melee’s success.”
This is incorrect. Here is an analysis of the sale of the three games
Some people question the validity of VGChartz so here are some other sources.
We have documented that Super Smash Bros on the 64 sold at least 4.9 million units and likely more with European sales factored in. 5 million is very high for most games as there are few games today that can break that. You claim the series really started with Melee, but you ignore the high sales of the first game. It would make more sense that the popularity of the series started with the first game, not Melee. When comparing growth, Melee only increased by about 1 and a half million from it’s predecessor while Brawl saw an increase of over 4 million. Melee rode off of the success of the first game and each game in the series has grown from the last one. So Melee’s sales were catapulted to 64’s success. So saying “Sakurai doesn’t understand what made Melee good and wants to make games for himself which is more Brawl” is incorrect.
But what if people just bought the game and didn’t like it? Well, there is this:
This is an average of 73 hours per person. This shows that people are buying Brawl and playing the ever living heck out of it.
Lastly, there is this
“What Sakurai is saying also doesn’t make sense. The top selling game in the US is Injustice, a fighting game. Mortal Kombat also sold extremely well when it came out in its revised state last generation. Street Fighter IV has performed extremely well. How can he say fighters are a hobbyist sport?”
As you can see, this is a far cry from 5 million. Fighting game fans said this brought on a second golden age of fighting games. However, it sold less than a game made in 1999 on the Nintendo 64. It’s sales are a joke compared to Brawl. And these are suppose to be “amazing” sales. While I don’t have sale on Mortal Kombat, I can say fighting game fans were not found of it (which is likely why it sold well). So when Sakurai says fighting games are a hobbyist sport, this is what he means.
Well, there is that. Despite this, I have enjoyed reading everything else. Take care!
Consider the storyline of Brawl. Was that necessary? What does any of that have to do with this type of game? The ‘story’ of Brawl is not that far off from the creative anarchy that hatched Metroid: Other M.
In other words, Sakurai is going to do whatever he wants.
Smash Brothers has always been popular with Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat fans as well. Those that don’t like Smash Brothers has more to do with the aesthetics (Smash is cute Nintendo IPs) instead of the more masculine street fighting of the other fighting games.
I think trying to push out the Smash 64 game numbers as success is reaching. The fact that you rarely hear anyone talk much of Smash 64 or play it speaks volumes. Everyone either plays Melee or Brawl. With Smash 4, we may see players divide up into Melee and Smash 4 with Brawl dropped.
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